


i built a railroad, now it's done

by BuckyontheLam



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes & Steve Rogers Friendship, Fluff, Gen, Humor, Moonshine, Platonic Cuddling, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Protective Bucky Barnes, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, drunk! steve, eaglets, mauled pledge of allegiance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-26
Updated: 2014-09-26
Packaged: 2018-02-18 17:10:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2356121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BuckyontheLam/pseuds/BuckyontheLam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve lurches up into a salute, eyes fixed to the distant horizon outside of the Avengers Tower. "I pledge my legiance--"<br/>Bucky wraps two arms around his middle and laughs.<br/>"--to the flag of the United Steaks--"<br/>"--States, Steve--" Banner blurts, horrified.<br/>"--of Amurka. And to the public for whence it came--"<br/>"--Steve, no--"</p>
            </blockquote>





	i built a railroad, now it's done

Bruce walks into the Avengers' living room one sunny Saturday afternoon with plans for a restful twenty minutes of reading _The Secret Garden_ on his StarkPad.

The room, which was the entirety of floor seventy-seven, has a master TV filling up the South wall. Covering the floor in front of this wall are piles of gaming systems and home theater electronics which Tony has fiddled into projecting in 3-D visual and surround-sound. ("So you can punch bad guys with Batman _and_ kiss Kate Winslet!") On the West and East walls are bookcases stocked with everything from historical biographies to shojo manga. ("Seriously, Clint?")

Spaced in a semi-circle throughout the rest of the room are several couches and chairs which fail to match a central decor. Instead, Tony Stark has purchased each item with a different team member in mind. The squashy purple armchair that feels like a hug is Bruce's. (Tony insisted.) The black, high-backed armchair is Clint's. The rosy divan with knife holsters in the cushions is Natasha's. Tony has a wheely, deathtrap chair which looks suspiciously similar to the throne from the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series. Where Steve Roger's old-man recliner had been, and in honor of their newest member, Tony has plopped a "Bald-Eagle Blue" love-seat with starry pillows tucked into each corner. 

"Because," Tony had said, "you gotta keep eaglets in their natural environment."

Which is code for, "I just really, really love screwing with those two. And I deserve a little payback, after what they did to my genuine autographed storm-trooper display."

It is on this love-seat that Bucky Barnes, né The Asset, sits. Bruce can just make out the back of a black ripped tee, his long hair tied up, and a silver arm glinting with cold malice around the back of it. On his right skin-and-blood shoulder, however, wobbles a spiky blond head. This head, Bruce realizes after a beat, is emitting a high-pitched and slightly helpless giggle.

"Uh," Bruce says. He wishes he could swallow it back. There is something really weird happening here. He wants to back out of the room and return to the solace of his lab like a good little recluse.

But then Bucky's head leans back, and Bruce takes an extra second to process the rosy-cheeked smile that the Winter Soldier flings his way.

"Banner-- Hey. Banner." Bucky waves at him with his metal arm. "Come 'ere. Watch this."

Bruce counts his breaths. Steadies his breathing. Slowly and sedately, he edges his way around the couch to his squashy purple armchair, and gingerly sits on the edge of one arm. From here, he can fully confirm that the blond head on Bucky's right shoulder is, in fact, Steve's. Their Captain's. His cheeks are as red as Bucky's. Redder. Under Steve's white tee, Bruce can make out the blood-brown bandages from their latest battle, and the ugly black stitches in the side of his neck. Bucky's bruises are covered. By their socked feet, wrapped in a few brown paper bags is a brown glass bottle. They grin at Bruce.

It's kind of adorable.

"Hey, guys," Bruce shifts on his seat. "What's up?"

He is momentarily impressed with himself for a) speaking at all and b) saying it so smoothly. But neither Bucky nor Steve pay him any mind. Steve grips Bucky's shoulder with his left hand, slapping Bucky's chest with his right as he cries wordless tears of laughter. Bucky throws back his head and laughs this weird, belly-full laugh, like he is suddenly Santa Clause and not the shifty, shadowy, pit-bull fighter that the Avengers have come to appreciate. Bruce glances again at the bottle.

"I'm guessing you two are a little... drunk?" Which is, Bruce recalls, an impossible state for Captain America.

And yet.

Steve howls. Buries his face in the soggy remains of Bucky's shirt sleeve. Bucky folds over him, face sliding into his face as he gasps for air.

"I'm not-- I'm--" Bucky laughs again, breathes in deeply, wipes at his eyes. "Aw, shucks. I drink this stuff so often, I can barely get tipsy. Stevie's just a lightweight and it's a friggin riot."

"He's a super-soldier," Bruce points out. There is nothing light about him.

Bucky leans down over Steve again to pick up the bottle. He knocks Steve with his shoulder, bumps the bottle against his chin. Bruce is strongly reminded of a mom giving juice to her kid. "Even a super-soldier can get a little kick from moonshine. If you make it right."

Which, what? " _Moonshine_?"

Steve tips the bottle back, chugging as fast as he can without choking.

"And that's the last of it," Bucky says. He wraps one arm around the top of Steve's head and tugs him over, squeezing. "He's gonna have one motheruva headache."

Bruce fumbles with his StarkPad. "I thought you could only find moonshine in the sketchiest parts of Kentucky."

"Pro-hih-bih-shon," enunciates Bucky. "You learn a few things about a few things."

"Ah," says Bruce. "Of course."

Bucky squeezes Steve's head again between his bicep and brachioradialis and releases him, resting his arm around Steve's shaking shoulders. "Stevie. Hey. Steve." He sniggers. "Recite the Pledge of Allegiance." 

 Steve lurches up into a salute, eyes fixed to the distant horizon outside of the Avengers Tower. "I pledge my legiance--"

Bucky wraps two arms around his middle and laughs.

"--to the flag of the United Steaks--"

"-- _States_ , Steve--" Banner blurts, horrified.

"--of Amurka. And to the public for whence it came--"

"--Steve, no--"

"--some nation, individual, with liberty and justice for all."

Bucky is laughing so hard that he's sunk completely onto his back, face muffled by a stars-and-stripes throw pillow. Steve tries to look back at him, but stumbles, sitting hard on Bucky's legs.

"Oh my god," says Bruce. He fans his face and counts, very slowly, to ten. He refuses to have a panic attack while he's sitting on his favorite chair. "Oh my god. Captain."

 "Caw, caw, motherfutzer," says Captain Steve Rogers, with a guileless white smile. He tips backwards until his spine is crushing the throw pillow against Bucky's breathing passages. The robot arm immediately swings out to wrap gently around Steve's bandaged middle, and tugs him over onto the side of the love-seat.

Bruce wants to both help Steve and hide him.  

 "How long will this stuff last?" he asks Bucky, when the other man has had a chance to breathe.

 "Now? Probably another ten minutes."

Steve giggles into the couch cushion. Bucky pats his back.

"Atta boy, Stevie. You can finally hold yer liquor."

Bruce does not want to think about how Steve is when he's  _not_ holding his liquor. Not at all. Really, he just wants a nap at this point. Which, coincidentally, looks like the direction Steve is heading anyway. His blond hair sticks up in tufts like a baby bird.

Bruce feels old just being in the same room as these two. Which is ridiculous, but then, not so ridiculous. They've existed for almost a century, but they've only lived about a third of that. If that.  He slides from the arm of his squashy chair so that it can envelope him in a much-needed hug, and then he pulls up Burnett onto his StarkPad, and after a few moments, an accord of silence falls over the room.

On the love-seat, Steve has rolled so that is face is pushed directly into the back corner, a pillow over his head and his long legs swung sideways over Bucky's.

Okay, thinks Bruce. All right. There's still a chance for reading. Dive in, Banner. Collect yourself.

He lets out a yoga sigh from his core, melts into his chair, and reads;

" _When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. It was true, too. She had a little thin face and a little thin body, thin light hair and a sour expression. Her hair was yellow, and her face was yellow because she had been born in India and had always been ill in one way or another..."_

There is a low humming. Bruce peeks up at his team mates from behind the pad.

Steve hasn't moved, but Bucky has piled a few more pillows onto Steve's back, so they slowly rise and fall with his breaths. Bucky himself rests his head on the back of the seat, drumming absently on Steve's giant socked feet. The hum, vibrating low in Bucky's throat, is a little busted ditty. It sounds like a song from the thirties, but Bruce doesn't know it.

 Steve squirms. Says, "Oh right, the barbershop" like he's made a grand, scientific discovery.

"Not much sense in practicing now," Bucky replies, eyes still closed. "We're short two guys."

"You're short to guys."

"Shaddap." Bucky pinches Steve's heel. "Go to sleep."

Steve pushes his foot into Bucky's stomach. Settles again. Bruce has never been so tempted to take a candid shot in his life. Within minutes, both of "eaglets" are fast asleep, and Bruce can see the small smile stuck in the corner of Bucky's mouth. Bruce returns to his book, but continues to check up on them every few seconds, a warm little ball growing in his chest that, for once, has nothing to do with an increase in green.

* * *

  Of course, Bruce nods off in the middle of the first chapter and when he comes-to, it is to a world of two spry geriatrics pinning Tony Stark to the floor and wrestling him for a high-tech gadget that no doubt doubles for a camera. Steve's face is yellow and sweaty and Bucky's is murderously-cold and poor Tony really doesn't stand a chance against two hung-over super-soldiers but Bruce has come too far to let stuff like this get under his skin, so he breathes a deep yoga breath, sinks deeper into his squashy purple chair, and goes right back to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Steve is left-boob grabbing Bucky, which is something Chris Evans does a lot to his costars and I have decided Steve does when he's drunk.
> 
> "The Secret Garden" was randomly selected for Bruce, because it's sweet and calming and not at all blood-pumping, but it turned out it was also perfect for Steve, too.
> 
> The Pledge of Allegiance was written in the late 1800's by a pastor. It was not used in Congress until 1942, and the "under God" was added in the fifties. I'm not sure how well Steve would know this when he's not drunk, but I'd say it's not much better than what we see here. That's my head-canon anyway.
> 
> Moonshine is typically made with corn mash, but Bucky has sources, and these sources probably make it from very suspicious materials for it to work on super-soldiers.
> 
> Bucky is humming, "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" by Bing Crosby, which is also part of the title. The song is really, really sad and reminded me a lot of Bucky and Steve and their whole generation. You can find it here: http://www.metrolyrics.com/brother-can-you-spare-a-dime-lyrics-bing-crosby.html
> 
> http://buckyonthelam.tumblr.com/ Come cry with me.


End file.
